Data management plans, or DMPs, are one of the foundations of good research data management. Hosted by the University of Alberta Library and supported by the Portage Network, the DMP Assistant is a national, open, bilingual data management planning (DMP) tool to help researchers better manage their data throughout the lifespan of a project. The tool develops a DMP by prompting researchers to answer a number of key data management questions, supported by best-practice guidance and examples. Building on the preceding DMP-focused webinar, this session will be of interest to researchers, graduate students, librarians, and research support stakeholders. Participants will take an in-depth look at the newly launched DMP Assistant 2.0, including all of its enhanced key features for both end-users and institutional administrators, as well as a brief look at the future of the platform.

Speaker:

Robyn Nicholson, Data Management Planning Coordinator, Portage Network

This webinar will be presented in English with simultaneous interpretation in French and will be recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Data management plans, or DMPs, are one of the foundations of good research data management. This DMP-focused webinar will be of interest to researchers, graduate students, librarians, and research support stakeholders, and will provide foundational information on developing DMPs. Topics covered will include the importance and benefits of DMPs, how they support research excellence, and what makes a ‘good’ DMP, as well as a detailed look at their standard content. Resources to help with the development of DMPs – including bilingual training materials, guidance documents and Exemplar DMPs – will be presented, as well as an update on the activities of the Portage DMP Expert Group, including forthcoming resources. A brief overview of the DMP Assistant platform will be provided, while a second separate session will deliver an in-depth look at the latest version of this platform, including its key features.

Speaker:

Research Data Access and Preservation Summit

Full schedule

Day 2 Thursday, March 11, 2021

Radical Change for RDM in Canada – Stakeholders, Services, and Synergies

Speaker: Jeff Moon, Portage Director

Building on many years of effort and progress, Research Data Management (RDM) is entering an exciting and radical new era in Canada with the creation of a New Digital Research Infrastructure Organization (NDRIO) that brings RDM, Advanced Research Computing (ARC), and Research Software (RS) together into one cohesive enterprise. The significant government investment in RDM this represents reflects confidence in work accomplished to date and a shared aspirational vision for the future. This presentation will outline strategic service and platform directions for RDM in Canada – making data more open and discoverable — and the synergies that merging with ARC and RS will foster. We’ll also look at the foundational and ongoing role of a Canada-wide Network of Experts coordinated by a national RDM Secretariat and aligned closely with the research data life cycle. We’ll introduce new tools, resources, and platforms and how community engagement has underpinned everything we do.

A Sensitive Data Toolkit for Researchers: Supporting Sensitive Data Sharing in Canada

Speaker: Victoria Smith, Policy, Privacy, & Sensitive Data Coordinator, Portage Network

Following the Open Science movement, sensitive data are becoming increasingly discoverable and accessible. Researchers need creative tools and solutions to address the ethics and privacy considerations involved in making their sensitive data shareable. The Portage Sensitive Data Expert Group has produced a Sensitive Data Toolkit to help researchers and research ethics boards support sensitive data sharing. This toolkit will help to steward the paradigm shift from the present model, in which sensitive data are typically presumed to be single-use only, to a new model in which valuable sensitive data are continuously re-used and preserved as appropriate. This new model enhances participant autonomy and supports the principles of equity and justice embedded in Canadian research ethics policy. Innovations in sensitive data management increase Canadian research capacity while providing Canadians with greater opportunity to contribute to research.

An Introduction to the Portage CoreTrustSeal Repository Certification Support Cohort and Funding

Portage will soon be launching a call for applications to participate in a cohort of Canadian repositories working toward CoreTrustSeal certification, together with funding to support this effort on the part of each participating repository. In this webinar, we will provide an overview of the benefits of working toward repository certification alongside a cohort and discuss some of the factors that contribute to success.

We will also provide a brief introduction to CoreTrustSeal as a certification for sustainable and trustworthy repositories and discuss the certification process from the perspective of Ocean Networks Canada, a Canadian repository.

Finally, we will introduce a call for applications for participation in Portage’s cohort of repositories. This webinar will be especially relevant to repositories who may consider applying to join the Portage cohort.

Speakers:

Reyna Jenkyns, Data Stewardship Manager, Ocean Networks Canada
Reyna has been closely involved in metadata management, data acquisition, expedition support and interoperability initiatives at ONC for more than a decade. She is active within the research data management community through working groups and committees, including as a board member for the CoreTrustSeal.

Rebecca Koskela, Executive Director, Research Data Alliance US
Rebecca has a background in scientific data management, bioinformatics, and high-performance computing. Prior to this position, she was Executive Director of DataONE (Data Observation Network for Earth). She leads the cohort of data repositories assembled to apply for the CoreTrustSeal certification as part of the AGU Coalition Enabling FAIR Data Project.

Karine Burger, Project Officer, Portage
Karine’s professional focus has been on digital information management and digital preservation, which she has applied at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. Most recently, she has studied law, graduating in 2020 with a Bachelor of Civil Law and Juris Doctor from McGill University.

This webinar will be presented in English with simultaneous interpretation in French and will be recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Portage is offering introductory webinars on the Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR), which will launch in full production on February 3rd, 2021. This webinar will delve more deeply into the curation service provided by FRDR. We will define what we mean when we say ‘curation’ and we will briefly discuss the value the curation process can add to new data deposits. We will consider more specifically what the FRDR curation process entails and what FRDR curators look for when they review new deposits, including descriptive metadata, documentation, licensing, and sensitive content. We will also share a few tips for preparing your dataset for deposit in FRDR.

Speakers:

The FRDR curation team

The webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Portage is offering introductory webinars on the Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR), which will launch in full production on February 3rd, 2021. This webinar will provide a high-level overview of the FRDR Repository Service. Participants will learn about the data deposit process, including curation, metadata, preservation processing, and more. This webinar will be of particular benefit to researchers and research support staff, including librarians, data managers, and advanced research computing support. A follow-up webinar on February 10 will delve more deeply into the curation service provided by FRDR.

Presenters:

Lee Wilson, Portage Service Manager

Erin Clary, Portage Curation Coordinator

Beth Knazook, Portage Preservation Coordinator

Kelly Stathis, Portage Discovery and Metadata Coordinator

The webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Data Managers are currently investigating the value proposition of Schema.org (SDO) with a lightweight implementation that couples the SDO vocabulary with indexing Google Dataset Search. This pathway essentially ‘webifies’ dataset search and syndication and enhances dataset discovery. This Webinar’s aim is to highlight current initiatives within the Research Data Management (RDM) community and the work currently being completed relating with SDO. To begin, we will introduce the ITO’s Schema.org for Research Data Managers: a Primer, which leads into the current resources available in the RDM community including the crosswalks collected by the Research Data Alliances (RDA) Research Metadata Schemas Working Group and their user friendly crosswalk visualizations, and finishing off with a synopsis of ESIP’s SDO science-on-schema community extension.

Speakers:

Chantelle Verhey, Research Associate at World Data System-International Technology Office.
Chantelle has a Masters of Science in Environmental Management from the University of Reading in the UK, and was dedicated to researching forest fire trends in the Canadian Boreal Forest. After her research was completed, Chantelle moved on to work at the University of Waterloo as a Data Manager for the Polar Data Catalogue. Now, she is combining her research and work experience to investigate the usefulness of Schema.org implementation as it attempts to open the discovery of datasets to a much broader audience.

Adam Shepherd, Technical Director for the Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Adam Shepherd has worked at WHOI as a software developer since 2000. In 2019, he co-founded science-on-schema.org for helping the science data community describe their datasets for search engines. He serves as chair of the schema.org cluster for the Earth Science Information Partners and as co-chair of the Research Metadata Schemas Working Group for the Research Data Alliance. Currently, his work focuses on data semantics for urban flooding forecast prediction and improved discovery and reuse of ocean science data.

The webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Beyond the research data management (RDM) institutional strategy, tri-agency and institutional policies and directives, and supporting various RDM tools, an important aspect of RDM is training members of the research community. Up to now and for good reasons, training has focused on information professionals. However, the time has come to start sharing our knowledge with the research community, including researchers, students, and research office staff. This webinar will present the various ways used by three institutions from the Université du Québec network, what motivated this approach, and what are the next steps for training. We will talk about modes of communication, people’s availability, and ways to reach a very busy audience.

Speaker

Jonathan Dorey is a research officer in RDM for École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP), Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) and Université TÉLUQ in Montréal. He holds a master and a PhD in information studies from McGill University in addition to being a certified translator. He is a member of the Portage Expert Groups on preservation and data management plans, as well as on the preservation committee of BCI’s RDM working group.

The webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Supporting research data throughout its entire life cycle requires a breadth of expertise that oftentimes spans across different departments within an institution, resulting in disparate sources of information and disjointed support for researchers. At the University of British Columbia (UBC), the Library and Advanced Research Computing (ARC) have been working towards a collaborative model of RDM support that aims to minimize researcher burden and maximize service quality. In this webinar we will discuss the history of the Library / ARC collaboration, sub-teams within these departments, collaborative initiatives, challenges, and future aspirations and goals for RDM at UBC.

Speakers

Nick Rochlin is the Research Data Management Specialist in UBC’s Advanced Research Computing team. He is active in the Portage Network of RDM professionals, co-chairing the Training Expert Group and the Institutional Strategies Working Group, and an active member of the FRDR User Experience & Training Group.

Doug Brigham has been the Research Data Management Librarian at UBC Vancouver since 2020. He is the administrator for UBC’s space within Dataverse@Scholars Portal and provides support to researchers in many disciplines. He is a member of the Research Data Alliance.

Megan Meredith-Lobay is the Research Specialist for Humanities and Social Sciences at UBC Advanced Research Computing. In addition, Megan serves on the Compute Canada Humanities and Social Sciences National Team. She has worked at the University of Alberta where she supported research computing for the Faculty of Arts, and at the University of Oxford where she was the programme coordinator for Digital Social Research, an Economic and Social Research Council project to promote advanced ICT in Social Science research. Megan holds a PhD in archaeology and has a background in using GIS for exploring ritual early medieval landscapes.”

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

This presentation will introduce participants to the Compute Canada Federation (CCF) and how the national digital research infrastructure helps to support research across all disciplines in Canada, with a particular focus on services for Social Sciences and Humanities researchers. The presenters will briefly discuss the various services that researchers can access through the CCF and how CCF is partnering with other organizations such as Portage to support research data management and ensure access to data for all researchers. The presentation will also introduce participants to different types of data storage available from CCF as well as best practices of data management, sharing and distribution. The presenters will cover differences between long term archival data storage and medium term conventional storage, their limitations, and methods of utilizing their advantages. There will also be a discussion of different methods of data sharing and distribution concentrating on using CCF Globus Transfer service.

Speakers

Megan Meredith-Lobay is the digital humanities and social sciences analyst for University of British Columbia’s Advanced Research Computing team. In addition, Megan serves on the Compute Canada Humanities and Social Sciences National Team.

Sergiy Stepanenko is the Advanced Research Computing Coordinator at University of Saskatchewan and WestGrid/CCF site-lead for the province of Saskatchewan. He is a member of several CCF National Teams and the lead of Globus National team.

Lydia Vermeyden joined ACENET in 2020 as a Research Consultant specializing in Humanities and Social Sciences. With an MSc. in Physics and Quantum information, her experience spans several research fields, including experimental quantum physics, nursing, psychology and public health.

John Simpson is Compute Canada’s Digital Humanities Specialist.

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Ocean Networks Canada invites attendees to learn about our approach to citing dynamic and heterogeneous datasets. We leverage advances from the research data management community such as Research Data Alliance Data Citation Working Group’s recommendations, the Research Organization Registry (ROR) emergence, ROR integration within the DataCite schema, and revised Earth Sciences Information Partners citation guidelines. Even so, there were conceptual, technical and sustainability barriers to overcome. To allow users to cite the exact dataset subset and version, we refactored our infrastructure and curation processes to handle query details and versioning provenance. Substantial effort went into supporting geospatial extents for fixed-position, mobile and remote-sensing instruments. These improvements are represented in landing pages, web services and documentation. While manual intervention remains for curatorial reasons, the vast majority of our implementation is automated. We hope our experience assists other repositories in plans to meet FAIR and TRUST Principles. This work was funded by CANARIE.

Speakers

Reyna Jenkyns is the Data Stewardship Manager at Ocean Networks Canada. She has been closely involved in metadata management, data acquisition, expedition support and interoperability initiatives at ONC for more than a decade. She is active within the research data management community through working groups and committees, including as a board member for the CoreTrustSeal. She received her Bachelor of Mathematics in Applied Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, and her Master of Science in Ocean Physics at the University of Victoria.

Chantel Ridsdale is a Data Steward at Ocean Networks Canada. She works on data management best practices, processes, procedures, policies, and standards for various projects and programs at ONC. Additionally, she maintains instruments, and expedition metadata and data records for reuse in Oceans 2.0. Chantel has a Masters of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University and became interested in data management as it provided an interesting new path for her degree and an opportunity to influence an increasingly important avenue for research. ​

Melissa Cuthill is a Data Steward at Ocean Networks Canada. With an academic background in Psychology and Library & Information Studies, her interests converge in a conviction about the importance of research data management to scientific reproducibility, which she will lecture you about, ad nauseam, at the slightest opportunity. She works to ensure ONC’s voluminous data is described well enough for users to find, understand, and be able to reuse it.

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Portage and Global Water Futures Webinar Series

Open data facilitates scientific collaboration, fosters innovation, and supports stronger and more reproducible science to inform decisions. Despite significant investments in the collection of water quality data, barriers to effective and open data sharing have hampered the ability to leverage this information to its full potential. This webinar will explore how DataStream’s open-access water data platform is addressing this challenge. Free and open for anyone to use, DataStream brings water quality monitoring data together in one place, in a consistent format – making it easier to connect results in meaningful ways. Attendees will learn about some of the key functionality of this open data repository with a focus on features that support FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data management principles.

Speakers

Carolyn DuBois

Carolyn is the Director of the Water Program at The Gordon Foundation where she works with partners across sectors in Canada. This work focuses on improving freshwater stewardship through citizen engagement in decision-making and the use of the best available evidence. Carolyn is a passionate advocate for open data and has led the development of DataStream, an online system that provides access to information about water quality. Carolyn holds a BSc in Biology from Mount Allison University and a Master’s in Environmental Management from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Patrick LeClair

Patrick is DataStream’s Data Specialist at The Gordon Foundation. In this role he works with communities and other collaborators to continually grow and improve DataStream, and online, open-access platform for sharing water quality data across Canada. Patrick has a background in water quality and data management and is passionate about working with groups across Canada to help tell their story through data to enact positive environmental change. Patrick holds a BEng in Environmental Engineering from Dalhousie University and a Diploma in Environmental Engineering from Saint Francis Xavier University.

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Presented by: Research Data Canada (RDC), Portage Network, Research Data Alliance (RDA)

Presenters: Mark Leggott, Research Data Canada; Jeff Moon, Portage Network; Lee Wilson, Portage Network; Karine Burger, Portage Network; Ingrid Dillo, Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS); Dawei Lin, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); Brian Corrie, iReceptor Project, Simon Fraser University (SFU); Reyna Jenkyns, Ocean Networks Canada; Karen Payne, World Data Systems (WDS); Mike Smit, Dalhousie University

The TRUST Principles for digital repositories, recently published in Nature Research’s Scientific Data, present a new set of guiding principles to demonstrate digital repository trustworthiness, centered around Transparency, Responsibility, User focus, Sustainability, and Technology. These principles provide a framework to facilitate discussion and implementation of best practices in digital preservation.

On July 7th, 2020, RDC, Research Data Alliance (RDA), World Data Systems (WDS) and the TRUST Principles authors presented the TRUST Principles Mini Symposium (Video; Slides: Part 1 | Part 2) which provided an introduction to the principles for a global audience. This upcoming webinar will serve as a follow-up that covers the TRUST Principles in a Canadian-specific context. RDC will be joined by RDA and the Portage Network to provide an overview of key concepts and implementations from a variety of perspectives, as well as considerations for ways forward. See the schedule below for a full list of topics and presenters.

Please note: This webinar will be presented in English, with simultaneous interpretation in French.

Keeping data and research materials organized across all phases of the research process is always a challenging process. To help the research community address these challenges, the Center for Open Science developed the Open Science Framework (OSF), a research tool that supports collaboration, data management, and transparency throughout the research lifecycle. The OSF provides avenues for researchers to design a study; collect, analyze, and store data; manage collaborators; and publish research materials. In this webinar, attendees will learn about the many features of the OSF and develop strategies for using the tool within the context of their own research projects. The discussion will be framed around how to best utilize the OSF while also implementing data management and open science best practices.

Speakers

Kevin Read, MLIS, MAS is a health sciences librarian at the University of Saskatchewan. He has been providing data services in health sciences libraries for the past 8 years in both Canada and the U.S. He is the current Chair of the Portage Network’s Data Discovery Expert Group, and is in the process of conducting research on how Canadian-funded researchers describe and share their data.

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

This webinar will explore USASK’s Water Information System KISTERS (WISKI) environment, including continuous (i.e. time series), discrete (lab or biology samplings), asset, and raster data types. Emphasis will be placed on automating data import, quality assurance, and reporting / exports. The second half of this webinar will focus on the new KISTERS web portal which is being implemented at USASK and provides a simple and intuitive method of submitting, visualizing, and acquiring data. Attendees will learn how to access these tools and more importantly, manipulate them efficiently to reduce time spent on data formatting, validation, and report generation.

Speakers

Steve Elgie has a research background in hydrological systems, renewable energy systems, and data management. He supports KISTERS in identifying, acquiring, and supporting new business throughout Canada and the United States. Steve works closely with clients across Canada to implement best practices / standardized operating procedures for diverse datasets. Steve has prior experience with non-point source nutrient modelling and environmental consulting for large scale renewable energy projects.

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Making a harvester harvestable: Federating an OAI endpoint directly from Postgres
Kelly Stathis and Alex Garnett

Does your repository want to implement an OAI-PMH server, but not know where to start? This presentation will cover how a discovery service adapted existing code to create a custom OAI-PMH server, allowing the metadata to be discoverable by OpenAIRE.

Geodisy: A new way to discover Canadian research data
Mark Goodwin, Paul Dante, Kelly Stathis, and Eugene Barsky

With the increasing demand for geographic components in research, there is an opportunity for research data repositories to provide alternatives to text-based discovery. Enter Geodisy, an open-source spatial discovery platform for Canadian open research data. Initially funded by CANARIE and now in partnership with Portage, Geodisy provides a map-based search that is available alongside Canada’s Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR). Data is discoverable based on its location, and users have the ability to preview datasets as overlays on a digital map and access comprehensive metadata.

These presentations are part of Access 2020.

Portage and Global Water Futures Webinar Series

Data deposit and curation means making decisions now that will impact prospects for preservation into the future. How can we best prepare our data for a leap into the unknown? In this webinar, data curation expert Shahira Khair (University of Victoria) and digital preservationist Grant Hurley (Scholars Portal) will join forces to show how decisions made at the time of data upload and curation impact the ability to preserve data for the long term. Attendees will learn introductory concepts in digital curation and preservation for research data, and how choices around what data files to keep, the level of descriptive metadata and other contextual information, and the use of preservation-friendly file formats, can help support (or harm) the prospects of data remaining accessible and usable later.

Speakers

Shahira Khair is a Data Curation Librarian at University of Victoria Libraries where she supports students and researchers in adopting data management practices and publishing their research data. She is currently seconded to Canada’s New Digital Research Infrastructure Organization (NDRIO) as a Senior Analyst to support assessment and strategic planning initiatives. Shahira also serves as Chair of the Portage Research Intelligence Expert Group.

Grant Hurley is the Digital Preservation Librarian at Scholars Portal, the information technology service provider for the Ontario Council of University Libraries. He oversees the maintenance of the Scholars Portal Trustworthy Digital Repository and coordinates the Permafrost hosted digital preservation service for OCUL members. Grant serves as a member of the CARL Digital Preservation Working Group and the Portage Preservation Expert Group.

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Portage is an invited participant.

Keynote: RDM Update: Tri-Agency Policy, CARL Portage, & Digital Research Infrastructure Developments
Jeff Moon, Portage Director

Canadian Research Data Repository Solutions and Innovations

Presented by Lee Wilson (ACENET/Portage)

Poster

Portaging Through Change — The Canadian RDM Experience

Presented by Jeff Moon (Portage)

Presentation Slides

CAUL-CBUA Forum on Research Data Management

Agenda

Organized by the Portage Training Expert Group

Live stream recording

Presentation Slides:
TC3 Draft RDM Policy (Matthew Lucas, SSHRC)
Portage Update (Jeff Moon, Portage)
Portage and the DMP Assistant (Jane Fry, Carleton, and Jeff Moon, Portage) & Group Lifecycle Models
Portage-Supported RDM Platforms: FRDR and Dataverse (Lisa Goddard, University of Victoria, Amber Leahey, Scholars Portal, Lee Wilson, Portage)

Collaboration and Platform Integration in Support of a Federated Research Data Management Service in Canada

Presented by: Lee Wilson (CARL/Portage), Corey Davis (COPPUL/University of Victoria), and Donna Bourne-Tyson (Dalhousie University)

Video recording

Presentation Slides

Portage Information Session

Presented by: Jeff Moon (Portage) and Laure Perrier (University of Toronto)

Presentation Slides

Research Data Management in Canada & Portage Network

Presented by: Jeff Moon (Portage) and James Doiron (University of Alberta)

Presentation Slides (1)

Presentation Slides (2)